Celebrate UMass

Celebrate UMass

UMass graduation is this weekend, so it is appropriate to remember that the Massachusetts Agricultural College was founded 160 years ago, in 1863. It was founded as a result of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, ‘… to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts…’  MAC’s sister institution, focused more on the mechanical arts, is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Massachusetts Agricultural College was renamed the  Massachusetts State College in 1931, and then became the University of Massachusetts in 1947. And for its 150th birthday in 2013, WGBY aired a one-hour show, The Radical Idea, which traced the institution’s founding, early years, and evolution. And in 2017 the Amherst Historical Society hosted a talk by the late Dr Rob Cox on diversity in the early days at Mass Aggie.

UMass Graduation

UMass Graduation

Happy Graduation to all UMass seniors!  We wish you the best of luck in these uncertain times. You may remember that UMass was founded, as Massachusetts Agricultural College, in 1863, when times were even more uncertain. And ‘Mass Aggie’ became Massachusetts State College in 1931, when times were, again, uncertain.

The Massachusetts Agricultural College was founded under the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862; in 2013 WGBY made a film of the history of the land grant colleges in general, and of UMass in particular; you may view their video here. And in 2016 the late Dr Robert Cox gave a talk about diversity in the agricultural college’s early days; you may view the video here